Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) has appointed US-based Deloitte as the lead adviser for the planned third phase of its Hassyan coal-fired power project.

Deloitte submitted the lowest bid of AED4.98m ($1.36m), which was about 36 per cent lower than the second-lowest bid of AED7.74m, offered by Austria’s ILF Consulting Engineers in a competitive bidding round in February.

According to sources close to the project, Dewa has now awarded the contract to Deloitte.

The third phase of the Hassyan coal scheme will be developed under an independent power producer (IPP) model, and is expected to have a capacity of 1,200MW. When completed, the Hassyan coal project is scheduled to have a total capacity of 3,600MW, with 2,400MW currently under construction.

In June 2016, a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power and China’s Harbin International was awarded the contract to develop a 2,400MW clean-coal-fired plant at the Hassyan site. Financial close for the $3.4bn project was reached in September 2017.

The shareholders in the project company for the first 2,400MW are:

• Dewa (51 per cent)
• Acwa Power (27 per cent)
• Harbin International (14.6 per cent)
• Silk Road Fund (Chinese sovereign wealth fund) (7.4 per cent)